Director Eli Craig Writers Craig & Carter Blanchard Original Novel Adam Cesare (2020).
Clown in a Cornfield is an effective B-grade teen slasher movie loaded with references to past classics and with the necessary self-deprecating humour.
Starts with a prelude slaying. We are in the town of Kettle Springs, Missouri. Everything screams Rust Belt territory and heartland Middle America.
Teen party outside a barn, with an open fire. In the shadows is an abandoned Baypen corn syrup factory. The industry which generated the towns prosperity and then succumbed to globalisation.
Young teens smoking weed and drinking. A couple go off to the nearby cornfield with the blonde girl shedding her clothes.
Pretty girls make graves. She is slashed and we get a glimpse of the killer. Costumed as Frendo the clown, the old mascot of the Baypen syrup factory.
The tale starts with troubled teen Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) and Doctor Dad (Aaron Adams) arriving at the decaying town. Her mother committed suicide, and both are recovering from trauma.
New school anxieties. The first person she meets is hunky teen neighbour Rust (Vincent Muller) who walks her to school. The jokes are broad.
Bonding process amongst her new acquaintances are rapid by necessity. The central character is Cole Hill (Carson MacCormac) the estranged son of Baypen magnate Arthur Hill (Kevin Durand).
There is Frendo the killer clown, He exists on social media as a continuing YouTube saga put together by a bratty school group of alpha teens.
Of course there is a real killer clown, so it plays on the same joke as the Scream franchise.
A large part of the plot structure revolves around the original landmark Tobe Hooper Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).
Chainsaw killings, chasing through a cornfield at night with buzz slashing.
A sheriff (Will Sasso) who is an obese redneck oaf and hates smart-aleck teens.
The characters tend to be a little obnoxious and disaffected in a dying small-town way. The writers capture this mood whilst having a lot of fun riffing off genre staples. Note I didn’t say ripping off.
A creepy two-storey house is the setting for Chainsaw and the original Halloween. The debt goes all the way back to Hitchcock.
Also note that the suspense is more implied than graphic, to heighten the adrenaline fuelled fear.
The annual Baypen Corn Syrup parade is an early set-piece. A massive clown float rides down the main street. Humour is bountiful.
One of the funniest. In the age of I-phones two of the teens scrambling to find a phone to call emergency, come across an old dial phone. Where are the buttons to push?!
Town patriarch Arthur Hill (Kevin Durand), father to Cole, has a striking resemblance to Elon Musk, as he addresses the townspeople for the parade.
Quinn and Cole are the most developed characters. Somewhere in the writing process the movie has managed to capture some of the disturbing nature of moral ennui of the western teen generation. Everything is Less than Zero.
Mostly Clown in a Cornfield is fun with murderous mayhem and a lot of sly humour.
Rev. Orange Peel
